


Square One

by CallieB



Series: Girl Forgotten [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, A Sudden Appearance of Hope AU, Amnesia, F/M, unexpected rainstorm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 16:45:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7395496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallieB/pseuds/CallieB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one know loneliness like a girl that no one can remember, a girl forgotten as soon as she is out of sight. Until the day she meets a police officer searching for a thief - a Houdini, who seems to be able to go anywhere without being detected…</p><p>(Based on the excellent ‘The Sudden Appearance Of Hope’ by Claire North, which I would advise everyone to read because it’s awesome.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Square One

Sitting on the striped futon outside her swim-up suite in Mexico, Belle watches a single coconut detach itself from the palm tree a couple of hundred feet away, and drop down into the pool with a mild splash.

A waiter, hurrying past in his muted brown uniform with a tray of dirty plates and lipstick-smeared wine glasses held aloft, turns his head sharply at the sound. No one else seems to notice the coconut's impromptu descent. The waiter stops, perhaps wondering if he ought to retrieve it from the water; he catches Belle's eye. She smiles; so does he. Then he hurries on.

Belle counts to nine. He saw her; and _now_ he forgets. Perhaps he'll remember the coconut; perhaps not. After all, a coconut isn't such an important thing to remember.

A human being, on the other hand...

Well, she's used to being forgotten, now. She has been forgotten since she was twenty years old, and now she is celebrating her twenty-seventh birthday. When she was a child, she used to wish on her candles; silly things, like a new bicycle or a box of custard-filled doughnuts. Not-so-silly things, like seeing her mother just one last time. After she was forgotten, she wished to be remembered. It's been several years since she's bothered wishing on her candles any more. Seven years of loneliness has brought out the cynic in her.

Belle swings her bare legs off the futon, sitting up and looking down at her toenails. Why does she bother having them painted? The same reason she still goes to the gym, eats healthily, gets her hair cut. The nasty cynical part of her says that it's easier to get what you want when you look good. The sanctimonious part of her says that keeping herself looking her best is for herself, not for others. But the truth is somewhere in between these two extremes, both of which are a little bit the reason and yet not the whole of it. Maybe she just wants to feel normal, even if no one else remembers that she's doing it.

She slides into the pool, the clear chlorinated water rippling around her body as her feet touch the bottom. A couple of sunburnt teenagers are slurping beer outside the suite next to hers; one of them, catching her eye, raises the can to her with a crooked smile and a slightly sleazy wink. Resisting the urge to flash them - it's not morally wrong if they don't remember - Belle sucks in a breath and plunges under the water, kicking away under the little bridge that leads to the main pool. By the time she resurfaces, she's around the corner, and the teenage boys have forgotten.

At first, she thought she was being forgotten because she was quiet. Not shy - Belle has never been shy - but quiet, immersed in the books she loved so much more than people. Why should the patrons of the library she managed remember her name? They came to the library to be alone, to lose themselves in stories. She could understand that, and so the frequent exclamations of: "Oh! Are you new here?" did not seem too surprising to her.

It took longer with her friends, and family, not that she had much of that left. Ruby, her best friend in all the world, forgetting Belle's regular order at the diner where she worked; forgetting that they were supposed to be meeting; sounding surprised when Belle called. Well, Ruby had always been the flaky type, and she was always apologetic when the mistake was made. Her father, forgetting to set her a place at the table, or to pick her up from work. He'd never quite recovered from her mother's death; a little confusion was to be expected. And Gaston, her on-again, off-again boyfriend; it took her the longest of all to realise he was forgetting her, because he'd never been particularly attentive.

She moved out the day her father phoned the sheriff on her. "There's a strange woman in my house," he said, the large cream handset pressed to the side of his face, a breathy panicked sound to his voice. "I don't know how she got in."

"It's me," Belle had said blankly, although she'd been suspecting this day was coming for quite a while. Again: "It's me."

Maurice had just looked at her, not the slightest hint of recognition in his eyes, and Belle had collected her things and left.

Now she sits on a stone stool underwater at an expensive hotel in Mexico, elbows resting on the swim-up bar, and orders a strawberry daiquiri. Bars do not tend to work out well for her normally, because the bartender forgets her order as soon as he has moved out of sight, but it is off-season and the bar is small, so here Belle can have her drink made before anyone has had a chance to forget her. No room service, of course, but that's only a small sacrifice.

A large blonde German is seated at the stool beside hers. His name is Alger and he is here with his boyfriend, an American called Henman after the British tennis player. Alger finds this amusing and makes jokes about never quite winning the prize; Belle, who does not follow tennis, has to look this up to understand the reference. Alger and Henman are in Mexico celebrating twelve years together; they aren't married, but Henman takes these relationship milestones very seriously. Henman used to be in shipping, but he retrained as a school teacher when he moved to Germany. Alger is a car salesman for Mercedes. Belle knows all this because she met Alger and Henman in one of the lounges a couple of days ago; they ended up having dinner together. She told them that her name was Natasha and she was in marketing and research. They all got very drunk on half-price cocktails.

"Morning," she says now to Alger. He starts a little, smiling blearily at her. She suspects he is hungover; she hasn't yet seen him without a drink in his hand.

"Good morning," he says politely. He gestures vaguely at the sky, which is a fierce and brilliant blue marred with an odd contortion of fuzzy grey clouds. "An odd sort of day, no?"

"I hear June is the rainy season in Mexico," Belle says. She smiles. "I'm Katie." Why lie? No reason, really, except that he won't remember and repeating oneself becomes slightly less tedious when the background details are different.

"Alger," he tells her, holding out a large, meaty hand for her to shake. "Is this your first time? In Playa Del Carmen?"

Natasha had visited Mexico several times, could tell Alger and Henman all about the Riviera Maya and Cancun. Interesting facts, history, legend. The men had been fascinated. "Yes," Belle says. "I've never been here before. Have you?"

"Ja, this is my second time," he tells her, also for the second time. "But my boyfriend--" yes, he had lingered on the word in exactly the same way last time, warning her that he wasn't interested in that way "--it's his first time. And my first time, that was with work, so it's the first time for both of us at leisure."

"That's so lovely," Belle says warmly, although her attention is already wandering. Is it worth it? She had a good time at dinner with the hearty German and his rather comical lover; can she bear the repetition, the same inane small talk, to get back to that again? Or would it be better to start again with someone new, to hear new stories, to feel like any other single traveller making new friends on holiday? The first time is alway better.

She casts around for someone else to talk to. It's early; most of the sun beds have towels draped across them, despite the neatly typed signs warning against this kind of possessive behaviour, but few actually contain bodies. Alger, not yet interested enough to pursue conversation with a stranger, turns away from her. Belle barely notices, still scanning the pool for potential companions.

She's just so lonely! She's become an expert at small talk, at expressing just the right amount of interest without coming across as desperate or creepy. Of course, if they go off to order a drink or use the bathroom, it's the end of the line; but until then Belle has the chance of real conversation and friendship. She's learned to draw people out, inviting them to speak more candidly than they normally would to a stranger. All useful skills to have, but when it doesn't stick - when there can be no second meeting - it all ultimately ends the same way. Square one.

A man, perhaps in his mid to late forties, wearing grey shorts and a navy linen shirt, standing by the edge of the pool on the opposite side to the bar with a pair of sunglasses in his hand. Deciding whether or not to settle here? There are four pools at the hotel, but this is the only one where children are not allowed. Right now, that makes it the most peaceful, but later in the day when the groups of Scandinavian twenty-somethings arrive with their lilos and electronic cigarettes, it will become rowdy and loud. Belle quite likes it - the Scandinavian boys, in particular, are quite welcoming of an attractive Australian travelling alone - but this man, with his neat hands and shoulder-length, grey-streaked hair, may not.

For now, however, he appears to be satisfied. Selecting a sun bed positioned well underneath one of the bright red umbrellas dotted around the pool, he strips off his shirt, takes a bottle of sun cream out of a khaki rucksack he'd had slung over one shoulder, and begins applying it to his - Belle realises with a blush - rather attractive narrow chest.

Well. After the mess she'd made with Will, Belle's sworn off relationships, but she's still capable of finding a man attractive. She pushes the sensation away. What's the point? Even if he likes her back, the most she'd ever be able to have with him would be a one-night stand. Perhaps several one-night stands, seducing him over and over again as she had with Will, never able to formulate anything more meaningful. She can't do it; it hurts too much. Even thinking about Will makes something rather painful constrict in her chest.

Seducing him may be off the table, but he's still a new prospect for her to befriend; Belle lets herself plop off the stool and into the water with a splash. Alger turns his head a little at the sound; when her head breaks the surface again, it's been long enough for him to forget.

"Didn't see you there!" he exclaims in surprise. Belle smiles, and swims away.

She picks up a towel from the booth nearby before going to sit on the sun bed next to the new man. He looks over at her, obviously a little taken aback; there are plenty of empty beds for her to choose. Perhaps he's not used to fellow travellers being so forward; in any case, it doesn't much matter. If she's chosen the wrong approach, she can always leave and come back again. As many times as it takes to get it right.

Still, she waits a while before engaging him, lying back on the bed to let the sun dry her off, her eyes half-closed against its glare. The man looks sideways at her once or twice, but seems to relax when she doesn't immediately start speaking, going back to the task at hand. Belle feels something tingle in the pit of her stomach as his strong hands rub the cream into the tops of his arms. She ignores the feeling.

When he's completely creamed up, the man replaces the bottle in his rucksack, slides his sunglasses onto his face, and lies back. No book or headphones; that makes befriending him easier. Belle counts to nineteen (odd numbers, that makes counting easier, never ten) and then turns her head towards him, her friendliest smile on her face.

"Business or pleasure?" she asks.

The man starts a little; she wonders a little guiltily if he'd fallen asleep behind his dark glasses. He's frowning as he turns to look at her, lifting his head slightly from the sun bed. "What?"

"Your trip," she clarifies. "Business or pleasure?"

"Do many people stay at a place like this on business?" he rejoins. His voice is soft, a low Scottish burr. Belle shivers, a completely inappropriate reaction to the heat of the Mexican sun.

She shrugs, trying to dispel the feeling. "You'd be surprised," she tells him, turning back to look out at the pool. While she's been waiting for the right moment to start a conversation, Henman has swum up to the bar; he and Alger are kissing over a couple of margaritas. "Especially with people travelling alone," she adds.

The man doesn't answer at first. Belle debates walking away, letting him forget, and then approaching again; if he's really against making friends, though, nothing will work. Some people just like being by themselves. Still, she's always liked a challenge, and there's something about this guy... More so than usual, she finds that she wants to get to know him.

She sits up, ready to try again; that's when he speaks, at last. "Pleasure," he says, the word a hard, low rasp. "Just a holiday."

Belle lowers herself back into the bed, unreasonably pleased with his response. "Have you been to Mexico before?"

"No," he says. "Do you make a habit of interrogating strangers?"

"I get lonely." Now where had that come from? It's been a long time since she's confided in anyone; strangers are usually either disinterested, which hurts, or sympathetic, which hurts more, because as soon as she leaves the room they forget why they pitied her.

The man is looking at her properly now, his head tilted to one side as he regards her. He says softly: "I know how that feels."

Yes, she can see that. His hunched shoulders, the white streaks of sun cream on his back where he can't reach to rub them in by himself, the thick masking sunglasses. Belle's an expert in loneliness. She recognises it when she sees it.

"I'm Belle," Belle says. Another unexpected truth; she changes names just for fun, usually.

The man extends a hand; Belle shakes it. His palm is rough and warm. "Rummond," he says cautiously. Then, hesitantly: "Well, Rum."

Belle tries it out on her tongue. "Rum," she says. "That's an unusual name."

"My father had an unusual imagination," Rum replies, and is Belle imagining the faintly bitter tone to his voice? He appears to collect himself, giving her a thin-lipped smile. "Belle. That's French, isn't it?"

Belle laughs. "You're more right than you know." He frowns; she explains: "That's my full name. Belle French."

"Ah," he says. There's a pause, a hesitation that seems to stretch out; for all her usual skills, Belle can't think of anything to say. Her heart is beating wildly in her chest, though she can't think why. Oh, he's attractive, but she's been attracted to people before! This is something else, something she's unused to feeling, and she can't pinpoint the emotion.

She'd like to explore it further, but there'll be time for that later; every moment she wastes now is a moment closer to the inevitable bathroom break, the departure for lunch, the empty promise to see her later. Falling back on her experience of older men when faced with a young and pretty girl, Belle smiles kindly. "Tell me about yourself, Rum," she purrs. "Any family?"

This means, are you married? Most men of Rum's age trip over their tongue to assure her that they're single, or that their wife is a shrew that they care nothing for, would she like another drink? When you're so easily forgotten, sometimes a little seduction is necessary.

Rum doesn't appear to be so easily won over. His eyes narrow suspiciously at her, and he says slowly: "A son. Neal." He pauses. "He'd be around your age, I'd imagine."

He may not understand her motives in asking, but there's a light in his eyes just at the mention of his son. Bingo. Belle smiles. "What's he like?"

"Married," Rum says curtly. Belle blinks. Did he think she was asking out of interest in his son? She ought to walk away, start again, but abruptly she's annoyed, and she wants him to know it. He's leaning back now, his face turning away from hers. Is he going to ignore her now? She sits up suddenly, and he looks over in mild surprise.

"Am I bothering you?" she demands. He raises his head from the sun bed slowly, removing his sunglasses with one hand to frown at her. One of the advantages of being forgotten: you can be as rude as you like, and there won't be any consequences.

"Bothering me?" he repeats, sounding confused at the question.

"Yes," she bites back. "I'm only making conversation, but if I'm bothering you I can just as easily fuck off."

Rum blinks at her. He says, quietly: "You're not bothering me."

The silence that follows is deafening. Belle, feeling uncharacteristically foolish, isn't quite sure how to fill it; she turns away, lying back down for the thousandth time and watching as Henman feeds Alger a pimento-stuffed olive on a cocktail stick. Alger's bulky behind wobbles a little on the underwater stool; he's laughing at something that Henman is saying, chewing heavily on the olive.

She'll never have that. She might drown in the loneliness of it.

"Brave." Rum's voice is so soft that she almost misses it; her head turns sharply towards him at the sound. "My son is brave," he repeats. "He's clever, and loyal, and he'd do anything for his family. Even me."

The love and pride he feels couldn't be more clear if he had shouted it. Belle finds herself smiling; not by design, not to reel him in, but just because hearing the strength of his love for his son warms her heart. Once upon a time, a very long time ago, her father would have spoken about her that way.

"That's nice," she says. "To have that bond, I mean." It's not the strongest sentiment in the world, but she means it, and she thinks he can tell, because he smiles.

That smile! A flash of white teeth, a curve of slender lips, creasing his narrow stubbled cheeks, crinkling his soft brown eyes. It makes Belle grin back at him, makes her want to laugh in delight, makes her want to be the one to make him smile every day. She doesn't think she's ever been affected by anyone like this before; Gaston was barely a ghost of a feeling, and even Will didn't come close to this. Her chest clenches; just another thing she can' t have, yet she doesn't have the strength to walk away from it as she should do.

"We didn't always," Rum says. She can tell by the closed-off tone that he doesn't want to talk about his son any more; that brilliant smile has disappeared, gone as swiftly as it arrived.

"What do you do?" she asks, quick to change the subject before he decides that he doesn't want to talk to her at all.

He seems a little surprised by the question. "I'm in the force," he says. She frowns; he clarifies: "The police force. I'm a Detective Inspector."

"Detective Inspector," Belle repeats, impressed. She's met a fair few policemen - it's hard not to, when your only way of surviving is to break the law - but never a Detective Inspector. "Do you enjoy it?"

Rum frowns, clearly considering the question. She likes that, likes that he doesn't answer immediately, that he's thinking about it, answering honestly. He says: "I need to do it. It needs to be done, and I suit it." He hesitates. "Enjoy it? No. It can be... grisly. Unpleasant. But I need to do it."

Belle thinks about what you must have to be able to endure, to see, to dig into, to be a high-level police officer, and she thinks she understands his response. There are things she needs to do, too, which most would find distasteful. Which she finds distasteful, really, but what choice does she have? Perhaps it's a little like that.

"And you?" Rum asks her. "What do you do?"

Belle bites down on her lower lip, feeling pain shoot through her chin. She doesn't want to lie to him. Why it matters, she can hardly say, but she doesn't want to be untruthful. "I don't, really," she says. "I... find it hard to keep work."

That's an understatement, but not one that she can explain. How to hold a job when no one remembers that they gave it to you? She tried temping, but reapplying to the agency each day took so long that she couldn't make a living from it. Everywhere else forgets her as soon as she leaves the interview room. Anything online suits her; computers remember her, even if everyone else forgets, and for a while she sourced rare books for online clients around the world. But again, it's low-paid work, and even then she still had to make phone calls. Her voice forgotten as soon as the phone was put down at the other end, she gained a reputation for being unreliable. No room for that in the digital world, and yet again she was back to square one.

After the first two or three years, wiping out her savings and scraping by on the little money she could earn in a single day before her employer forgot her, she had to turn to crime. She hates it; it's not who she is, not who she wants to be, and even now she's ridiculously careful about who she steals from. She scours the papers for the immoral rich, finds people living off of the misery of others - so, so many of the wealthy fall under this umbrella - and takes a little for herself. Enough to live off, enough to eat, enough for the odd holiday when she's so lonely and heartsore that she can't bear another day in her derelict little apartment, and all the rest goes to the needy and hungry.

It ought to make her a little wary of a police officer, but then, no one has even been able to remember that she stole from them.

Rum digests her words in silence. She thinks he's going to ask her why - and what would she say, if he did? - but when he speaks, his question is a completely different one.

"What would you do, if you could?"

What a question! Belle hasn't thought about it since she was a teenager. She'd enjoyed her job at the library after she left school; she knows that whatever she'd do, if she had the option, it would be something to do with books. She says slowly: "I think I'd like to work in publishing. An editor, perhaps?" She adds, a little embarrassed: "I love reading. I can get lost in a book for hours."

Rum's voice is gentle, probing. "What do you like to read?"

"Everything," she answers, too quickly. "Anything," she amends. "I... Well, I prefer fiction, but I do find factual books interesting, especially when they're written with passion."

The corner of his mouth quirks. "Passion in non-fiction?"

"Yes," Belle says, nodding eagerly. "Written by an expert in the field, someone passionate about the area of fact, with a genuine and deep interest of their own. It comes across in the writing, I think."

"I know what you mean," Rum says. He sounds a little surprised, as though he hadn't expected to find common ground. "And fiction? What are your favourite authors?" He gives her another dry little smile. "You must get asked that all the time.'

Well, yes, but she rarely answers honestly. It's too boring; instead she normally takes a perverse pleasure in pretending to enjoy authors she really hates, picking out their worst traits and acting as though that's what she likes about them. With him, though... "I like eccentric books," she tells him truthfully. "Diana Wynne Jones. Debi Gliori. Adèle Geras."

"Children's writers," Rum observes.

"Young adult," Belle corrects, secretly delighted that he recognises the authors she mentioned; they're all fairly obscure. "I like adult books as well, but a good young adult novel brings the story to life in a way that lots of more mature writers forget to do."

"My son was fond of Debi Gliori as a teenager," Rum says, a little hesitantly. "I used to read to him before he went to sleep at night. Well beyond the usual age for bedtime stories, but..." He trails off, the faintest hint of a blush colouring his cheeks.

"No one's too old for bedtime stories," Belle declares. Unexpectedly, she feels tears prick at the corners of her eyes. She says in a rush: "I wish you could remember this. I wish I could keep this."

Slowly, very slowly, Rum's face turns to hers. He's still not wearing his sunglasses, and when his eyes meet hers, they're piercing. His brow is furrowed, his mouth a thin line as he studies her; Belle feels an odd shiver of fear. But what is there to be afraid of? He won't remember any of this conversation when she walks away, and she must walk away soon. For her own safety, and peace of mind.

"Now what," he says, his voice gentle yet hard as a knife, "could you possibly mean by that?"

Belle's mouth works silently for a moment or two before she remembers how to speak; the last little droplets of water from her swim earlier glisten on her toes, her pretty painted toenails that no one but her will ever remember. "N-nothing," she forces out, hearing the choked sound to her own voice and hating herself for it. She gives a high-pitched little laugh, so obviously false that it makes her ears burn. "I just meant..." There's no explanation, nothing that would make sense. "Nothing," she says again.

For a long, long moment, Rum just looks at her. Then, at last, he turns away. Reaches for his knapsack, pulling out an old battered book bound in worn brown leather. Despite herself, Belle's eyes are drawn to the book; the pages are thick and creamy, the cover creaking as he opens it. It's not a reading book, and Rum draws out a beautiful black and gold fountain pen from his knapsack to accompany it. She wonders, idly, what notes he's making; she could snatch it and run, read the book while he forgets, but she won't. She tries not to use the forgetting against others unless she absolutely has to.

He answers the question for her, without her having to ask. "Case notes," he says, folding back the heavy pages until he comes to a blank one. His hand smooths across the blank paper. "I can't make sense of anything unless I write it down."

Belle's eyes flutter closed, and then open again, as she settles herself back down on her sun bed; Rum unscrews the lid from the fountain pen carefully, setting the nib to the page. "Are your cases complicated?" she asks, very deliberately not watching him write. She doesn't want him thinking that she's sneaking a look at his professional notes.

He doesn't look up. "Sometimes," he says. He hesitates. "Sometimes less so." She has the oddest feeling that he wants to say something more, and is resisting the urge.

"Tell me about your most recent case," she says, folding her arms comfortably across her chest. In the pool, Henman tugs at Alger's bulk with spindly arms, trying to pull him off his stool and into the water. Alger is laughing, a deep, rumbling sound.

There's a slight pause after her question; for a moment, she thinks Rum will refuse to answer it - as well he might, since she's only a stranger - but at length he says: "My last case... I was investigating a thief. A very talented thief."

Belle is amused by the idea. "What kinds of things did he steal? Jewels? Gold?"

She looks over to him in time to see a smile quirk his lips for a moment or two. "Just money, like most thieves," he says.

"That's not as exciting," Belle says reprovingly.

He smiles tolerantly. "Perhaps not. This thief, though... She's Houdini."

She laughs, although she hasn't missed the pronoun or the use of the present tense. "And did you catch her?"

Another pause, longer this time. "No," he says eventually. There's a splash as Henman finally succeeds in his goal; Alger tumbles from his seat into the pool with another loud chuckle. "She's still at large."

Maybe it isn't her. There are many talented female thieves in the world; perhaps it's merely coincidence that he is here, staying at the same hotel, searching for a thief. But even if it isn't her... She doesn't know him, doesn't know anything about him, has no reason to want his good opinion. But she does want it. His face is so stern, his eyes hard and flinty at the thought of this thief that has evaded him.

"Do you think," she begins hesitantly, "that crime... that crime can ever be justified?"

His face turns to hers very slowly, his brow furrowed into a straight line. "I'm a police officer," he reminds her, his voice like stone.

"Yes, but..." Her voice breaks; she wants so desperately to explain in a way that he'll understand. Her eyes flick over to the pool; Alger and Henman have gone. "Do you think that there are circumstances under which... What if a thief has no choice?"

She waits, her words hanging in the air, for his verdict. He appears to be considering what she's said; his gaze turns thoughtful, his stance relaxing. At last, he says: "Poor upbringing, a rough childhood - many thieves steal to avoid poverty. Is that what you mean by having no choice?" He turns his eyes on her, studying her.

"No," she says. "Well, kind of, I suppose... I mean," she rushes on, "what if someone had... has an affliction."

He frowns at her. "An affliction? Kleptomania, you mean?"

"No, no," she says quickly. "An affliction, a curse... An affliction that prevents their earning a living in any other way."

"Disability benefits," he says doubtfully, but she can see in his face that he knows that isn't what she means. He says carefully: "What kind of affliction?"

To tell, or not to tell? She's only ever told twice before, and on neither occasion did it end well. But where's the harm? She's not hoping to accomplish anything by telling, except perhaps his understanding for this brief moment.

She makes up her mind. "What if you were cursed to be forgotten?"

Whatever he might have been expecting her to say, she can tell that wasn't it. His brown eyes widen in surprise, and he drops the fountain pen; it lands on the book in front of him, a splat of pearly black ink splashing across the page.

He pays no attention to the pen. "Forgotten?" His voice is low and eager.

Belle nods, suddenly desperate to get it all out. "What if you could only be remembered so long as you were seen? Forgotten as soon as you left someone's sight? What would you do then?"

He says slowly: "It sounds like a fantasy..."

She jumps up, her towel falling away from her and onto the sun bed. Rum watches her, startled by the sudden movement.

"Watch me," she says. "Don't take your eyes off me."

Her eyes dart around; a girl, perhaps nineteen or twenty, in a green bikini with gold trimmings, is walking past a few feet away, her dark hair piled into an enormous bun on top of her head and a drink clutched in her hand. Belle strides over to her so fast it's almost a run. The girl stops, taken aback by her sudden appearance.

"My name is Jessica Rabbit," Belle says calmly to the girl, loudly enough that Rum can hear her. "I'm an overly sexualised cartoon character that most teenage boys in the nineties felt conflicted about fantasising about."

The girl blinks behind her enormous sunglasses. "Um," she says. Her chin tilts as she looks around for an exit. "Okay."

"What's my name?" Belle demands. "Who am I?"

"Um," the girl says, definitely a little nervous now. "Is this a prank, or something?"

"Tell me my name," Belle insists.

"Seriously, you're freaking me out, okay?" the girl says. "Can you just let me by?"

"What's my name?" Belle repeats, not moving. The girl takes a small step backwards.

"Jessica Rabbit, right?" she says. "Can I go now?"

"Very good," Belle says, stepping aside. Behind her, she hears Rum snort quietly; she smiles at that. The girl walks on quickly, obviously anxious to be away from her. Belle waits, counting to nine. She's freaking out, trying to decide what to tell her friends; and _now_ she forgets.

"Excuse me?" Belle calls.

The girl in the green bikini turns slightly; Belle waves to her, and she stops. "Yes?"

Belle walks over to her. "Hey there," Belle says. "I just love your swimsuit, is that Prada?"

The girl smiles a little. "Chanel," she confesses.

"I'm Hannah," Belle says. The girl gives a half-smile.

"Chloe," she says.

"Do you remember me?" Belle asks. "Does Jessica Rabbit mean anything to you?"

Chloe stares at her. "The cartoon, right?" She frowns behind her sunglasses. "I'm sorry, have we met before?"

It shouldn't hurt. This silly girl in her overpriced bikini is just an experiment, just proof to Rum that what she's saying is the truth. But it does hurt, all the same, just as it always does. Belle takes a breath.

"No," she says. Then: "I could slap you. I could kiss you. I could steal the drink from your hand, the glasses from your face. I could threaten you with a knife until you told me all your secrets. I could take your wallet, and in the morning you wouldn't know where all your money had gone. You wouldn't be able to describe me to the police. You wouldn't even remember we had met."

"What?" Chloe says, stupefied, but Belle doesn't have time for her. She walks away, back to Rum, and a moment or two later Chloe is continuing her journey with her drink, with no memory of what has passed.

Rum is as still as a statue, his skin hard like glass. "This is a set-up," he says as she sits down. "You know her already."

Belle wants to cry, but she doesn't. "I guess that's what I would think, too," she agrees calmly. "Name your test."

He just looks at her. "Why am I still listening?" he whispers. Belle can't answer him; she just looks back at him. At last he says, "Alright. That waitress." He points to a dark-haired woman in a crisp beige shirt and darker brown skirt passing on the opposite side of the pool, a tray of wine glasses balanced on one hand.

Belle looks over, frowning. The woman doesn't seem very well-suited to being a waitress; she's wearing incongruously deep purple lipstick with matching painted fingernails, and appears to be tripping slightly over her sensible flat brown shoes. Belle turns back to Rum.

"She works for you." It isn't a question.

Rum raises an eyebrow. "Very astute," he says, sounding surprised. Belle rolls her eyes. She wouldn't have lasted this long without being able to pick up on atmosphere. Rum says: "She's an undercover associate of mine."

"So when you said you were here for pleasure..." Belle's voice trails off.

"A necessary lie," he tells her.

Belle makes up her mind. "Come on," she says. "You'll need to stay with me, so you don't forget me too."

He nods his head in assent, and they make their way over to where the waitress is in the process of depositing the tray at a large table of middle-aged men, several of whom cheer as she sets wine in front of them. She glares fiercely back at them; Belle thinks that this is a woman she would not like to get on the wrong side of.

"Regina," Rum calls as the waitress moves away from the table. She looks up sharply, her dark eyes moving instantly to Belle, who finds herself scrutinised at length.

The waitress lifts her chin up. "Who's this?" she asks coldly.

Never one to be intimidated - or at least, never one to reveal how intimidated she really is - Belle raises her own chin, and wishes - not for the first time - that she was just a few inches taller. "Belle French," she says, extending a hand. The waitress looks at it suspiciously, but shakes it all the same.

"Regina Mills," she says cautiously. Her gaze transfers to Rum. "Gold?"

This pronouncement makes very little sense to Belle, until Rum answers; it must be his last name. "Miss French here is assisting me with the case," he says smoothly.

Regina raises one plucked dark eyebrow. "Really? Because from over here it looked as though the pair of you were sunbathing."

Just the slightest hint of a smile adorns Rum's face. "Really, Regina, envy does not become you well. I'm sure you'll have your chance to sunbathe." Belle has to work to hide a smile.

Regina is obviously not so amused; her face twists into something ugly and angry. She casts a furious glare left and right, and then marches away, towards a bench underneath a nearby tree. She glances over her shoulder at Belle and Rum, beckoning them impatiently; slowly, the pair of them follow her into the shade of the palm.

"We'll get a little more privacy here," Regina says as Belle sits down on the bench beside her. Rum remains standing, leaning on the back of the bench with one hand. "Now, what's going on?"

"I'm the thief you're looking for," Belle says bluntly. Regina's eyes go wide with shock, and she hears Rum suck in a little muted gasp; well, perhaps he hasn't said as much, but it seems obvious to Belle. Rum's calculated interest in her, the fact that he's managed to trace her to her hotel - probably followed the cash trail for that - and, most importantly, the fact that there's a small part of him that already believes her. She can see it in his eyes, his clever, clever eyes. He must have worked out that some of the heists his thief has pulled off can be explained perfectly by her condition.

Regina appears to have recovered from her surprise. "Is that so?" Her voice is rich and warm, but there's an underlying note of iron.

"Yes, it is," Belle says confidently. "I'm about to show Rum how I do it."

Regina's poised gaze turns to Rum. "On first name terms, are we?" she says acidly. Rum merely spreads his hands, as though unable to explain it himself.

"Close your eyes," Belle commands, ignoring Regina's barb. Regina opens her mouth to argue - and then, oddly, shuts it again. Her head tilts slightly to one side, her dark eyes calculating.

"You'll only show Gold," she says slowly. "Not me."

Belle shrugs. "Close enough."

Regina's eyes are so narrowed that they're almost slits. She says, surprisingly: "Alright."

Carefully, her eyelids flutter shut.

Belle waits. Counts to thirteen. Now she's thinking about the possible deception Belle is working; _now_ she forgets. "Open your eyes," she says softly.

Regina's eyes open once more. She blinks. Looks at Rum. Looks at Belle. Looks around them at the dappled sunlight playing through the leaves above them, the green coconuts bunched against the trunk. Opens her mouth. Says: "Gold, who's this?"

To his credit, Rum doesn't give away his shock. He just stands for a few moments, his gaze locked with Belle's, digesting all that has occurred. Then he says, his voice terse: "If we walk away, will she forget we were here?"

"Will who forget?" Regina asks impatiently.

"Yes," Belle says.

Without another word, Rum reaches forward, his hand curling around Belle's wrist, and pulls her away.

They go to Belle's room. The sun has dried her, now, but she feels uncomfortable in just her swimsuit, and she tells Rum this as they walk past the lines of tourists stretched out like meat on slabs underneath the rich blue sky, the clouds just fringing the edges of the palm trees. Rum gives her a sideways glance, his eyes travelling down from her face for just a moment, and then he looks away again, seeming a little embarrassed.

Belle doesn't mind. So far, he's only seemed to see her as either irritating or interesting; it's nice to know that her appearance at least has a little effect on him.

They go via the sun beds, so that Rum can pack up his fountain pen and notebook, and then Belle leads the way to her suite. She's nervous; it's one thing to tell him what she is when she's outside, able to walk away at any moment, but in the confines of her hotel room there's less chance of escape if need be. He could put her in handcuffs, and she'd be completely helpless.

No point thinking about that now. They're at her door, and her fingers fumble with the wristband around her left arm, pressing the magnetic strip against the receiver on the wall. There's a click, and a green light, and Belle pushes open the door to let them in.

She's thankful, despite the fact that he won't remember it, that she left her room in a fairly good state. A wet bikini lies strewn across one of the two sinks in her open bathroom, there's a mess of jewellery and bobby pins on the low table beside the wardrobe, and her bed is unmade with last night's pyjamas tangled atop a pillow, but the rest of the room is tidy and devoid of dirty laundry or empty packets of Skittles. Rum doesn't seem interested in the bedroom anyway; he gives it a cursory glance, but all his attention seems to be on Belle, as though worried that she'll disappear before his eyes if he dares to so much as blink.

"This is me," Belle says unnecessarily. There's a black and pink flowered sundress laid across one of the chairs by the sliding door leading out to her little balcony; she picks it up, pulling it over her head in such haste that she gets tangled in it, and has to take it off and start again more slowly. She puts on shoes, too; a pair of pale pink sandals that show off her prettily painted nails. Perhaps he won't remember it - and how her heart clenches at that thought - but she's shallow enough to want to look her best for him in this moment. The best she can while changing right in front of him, anyway.

While she's been dressing, Rum has seated himself on the cream couch next to the bed, having removed her battered copy of _Northanger Abbey_ from underneath the cushions. He waits, his hands folded patiently in his lap, for her to come and join him; she does so slowly, trepidation looming over her as she sits beside him.

When she's sitting down, he opens his mouth - and closes it again. What can he possibly say? Belle can't help but laugh a little at his bewilderment. None of his training in the force came close to this situation, she's sure.

At last, he says: "This... condition." He stops again.

"It started when I was twenty," she says. He tilts his head to one side, giving her a questioning glance; she finds herself telling him about the slow decline in memory of everyone around her, the dawning realisation that Gaston wasn't just standing her up because he wasn't a very good boyfriend.

"I mean, he wasn't, anyway," she adds as an aside. "But even so."

She tells him about her father's call to the sheriff, about the frightening ensuing weeks where she had to figure out how to survive in a world that couldn't remember she existed. She tells him, the words slipping out without her quite realising how, of the visits she made to her father's shop, purchasing flowers, exchanging a few polite words with him, her heart aching, until it simply became too painful to go back.

He listens silently, his brow furrowed in concentration, and she can tell that he's determined not to miss a single word. When her voice tails off at the end of her little sad story, he reaches out a hesitant hand, and touches the back of hers. She takes his hand immediately, grateful for the gesture.

"It's not so bad, really," she says. "I make friends easily. I have a good life. It's just..."

"Lonely," he finishes for her.

She gives him a small smile. "You said you knew something about that," she says, making it a question with her tone.

Keeping one hand clasped with hers, Rum reaches the other up to run through his grey-streaked hair, mussing his neat parting. Belle has the sudden urge to smooth the hair back into place; to draw her fingers through it, to stroke his face. She bites her lip; she can't allow herself to feel this way about him. She hardly knows him in any case, and, far more importantly, he'll never know her. She has nothing to hold onto.

Oblivious to her thoughts, Rum's hand comes back down to rest in his lap. He says, his voice quiet and just a little lost: "When my boy was very young, his mother was killed by a local drug lord I had been investigating."

Belle gasped, her hands flying to her mouth; she swiftly returns one to hold Rum's again before he can withdraw it. "I'm so sorry," she says.

"It was a terrible time," Rum says sombrely. "She'd always complained that I was weak, that I didn't do enough to support our little family, so in her memory I threw myself into my work. I abandoned my son to his own grief. I wasn't there for him as I should have been." He breaks off, his voice heavy with emotion.

"You were grieving yourself," Belle says softly, squeezing his hand.

He gives her a quick, grateful smile, his fingers tightening briefly around hers. "That's as may be," he says. "My son still should have come first. I don't blame him for being so angry with me that he didn't."

She hesitates. "You said you didn't always get along. Is that why?"

"Partly," he says. He takes a deep breath, sighing. "I concealed something from him that I should not have."

"What did you conceal?"

Another puffing exhalation. "That his mother was alive. That, far from being killed by the drug lord, she ran away with him voluntarily, leaving her husband and son behind without so much as a word."

There's a silence after his words; Belle doesn't quite know how to react to them. Rum gazes across the room, seemingly at the abstract swirling painting hanging on the wall opposite, but it's obvious he's seeing something far more distant.

He says heavily: "I didn't find out myself for some years. Milah's body was never found, and her death was only presumed; by the time I did find out, and confronted her, my son had moved on. Milah made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him. I didn't see the point in raking it all up again when it would change nothing." He sighs again. "I thought it would be better for Bae to think she died loving him, than to know she abandoned him without pause for thought."

"How did he find out?" Belle whispers.

"She was arrested, she and her boyfriend." Rum's lips twist in a sudden snarl. "Not by me. It was all over the news: the woman who had faked her death to run away with a criminal. I had to confess to Bae that I had known - not all along, but for some time. He has never fully forgiven me."

Belle's whole face is creased in sympathy. "But he must understand why you did it!"

Rum shrugs. "Now, as an adult with his own son, he is a little more understanding of my reasoning. We're... finding common ground. But for many years, we didn't speak at all. I wasn't invited to his wedding."

Belle can feel her chest contracting at the thought of being so isolated from your family; she wants to cry, because the feeling is so familiar to her. It's sheer loneliness, it's desolation. She squeezes his hand so tight that her wrist shakes. "And his mother? Surely he hasn't forgiven her?"

Rum gives a bitter laugh. "She died in prison, giving birth to her lover's child. A little girl, I believe." He pauses. "The baby died too. Bae never had the chance to confront her."

"Oh, Rum," Belle breathes. "That's awful. I'm so, so sorry." She wants to fling her arms around him; he looks bereft, and broken. She doesn't. She can't.

"Two lonely people," he says quietly. There's a glistening tear in the corner of his eye.

She can't help it. She shouldn't, she mustn't, but she does. She throws her arms around his neck, pulling him into a fierce embrace. He's frozen in her arms for a moment; then he relaxes, hugging her back, his face pressed into her neck, his hands stroking the length of her hair. He's warm against her, solid and comforting. She can feel his heart beating against her chest.

She draws away a little, still holding onto his shoulders. "I fell in love with someone once," she says, the words tumbling over one another. His eyes are wild and unfocused as he looks at her. "His name was Will. I met him night after night, went out with him time after time... Walking away from him was the hardest thing I've ever done, except maybe leaving my father. I loved him, but he couldn't remember me from one day to the next. To him, I was just a nice, pretty girl he liked to have fun with."

He reaches up, fingering one damp brunette curl behind her ear. "So you left," he says sympathetically.

"I had to," she says. "I was stopping him from having a life of his own, too." She swallows. "Less than a year later, he was engaged. I'd spent six months of his life, and he hadn't even known it. He's married now. Anastasia Scarlet, that's his wife. She could have had him sooner if I'd been able to let him go. If I hadn't been so selfish."

Now his fingers graze her cheek, low down near her chin; Belle closes her eyes, leaning into the touch. "It's not selfish to fall in love," he says gently. "It's not selfish to desire love."

She catches his hand, holding it against her face. "You won't remember this," she tells him. "You'll fall asleep, and it'll be gone. As though it never happened."

He doesn't answer, leaning forward and closing the short distance between their lips. Her eyes flutter closed again as his mouth touches hers; his lips are burning, sending tingling waves shuddering through her. Her arms slide around his neck, one hand caressing the back of his head, feeling his hair running like silk through her fingers. She can feel the sofa against her back; Rum has pressed forward so that she leans back, swinging her legs up onto the couch. She strokes his face, his hair, pulling him closer, as close as she can possibly bring him.

His mouth moves against hers, his tongue sliding between her lips, and Belle shivers against his body. She can feel him smiling, tightening his hold around her, and suddenly nothing is as important as this moment, this beautiful moment where Rum kisses her as though he'll remember it, kisses her and knows who she is, kisses her and kisses her and kisses her.

It could be minutes or hours or even days, as far as Belle knows. All she's aware of is the sensation of Rum's hands on hers, stroking up her spine, running down her legs, his mouth on hers, kissing her face, her neck, her collarbone. At some stage they move across to the untidy bed, and Rum draws her dress over her head, tossing it aside. She reaches for the buttons of his shirt; he hesitates.

"Belle," he says, his voice uncharacteristically nervous. She smiles, tingling at the sound of her name on his tongue. "Belle, I'm not... I'm not a young man. I'm not so much to look at."

"You're beautiful," she tells him, her voice ringing with sincerity. She pushes his hand away, unbuttoning his shirt, and then she licks his chest and runs her hands down his stomach and kisses him until he believes her.

Afterwards, Belle falls asleep. She doesn't mean to - oh, she doesn't mean to! She wants to savour this day for as long as possible. Will, Will was nothing compared to this. Did she really love him? He was a nice man, a kind man, but she never even thought of telling him the truth of what she was. Perhaps, as Rum said, she simply desired love. This, this moment here, this man holding her in his arms, this is the closest thing to love she's ever felt. This makes every memory of Will, of Gaston, fade into obscurity. She's been honest with this man, been herself, and he still wants her. It feels real. It feels like being free.

But even the joy of being curled into his arms can't stop the exhaustion from creeping up on her; Rum is still, but she can see his brown eyes - softened in a haze of happiness - are still open as hers reluctantly flutter closed. Her last thought is that if this is the last memory he'll have of her, she's glad it's this.

She's alone when she wakes. It's not really a surprise, but she still feels it like a blow to the chest. She wonders what time it is; the sky outside, as she blearily lifts a head to look out of the window, is dark, so she must have been asleep for several hours. She blinks, trying to shake of the residual tiredness.

"Good evening."

Her head whips around so quickly that she can hear it cracking. "Rum!"

How can he be here? But he is, sitting on a chair at the end of her bed, his notebook open on his lap and his eyes heavy-lidded, looking rumpled and sleepy and utterly delicious. He smiles at her. "I couldn't fall asleep," he tells her. "I needed to remember this."

Tears prick her eyes. "You won't," she tells him. "I wish you could. I wish I could keep this. But you won't."

In answer, he tosses the leather-bound book gently onto the bed, gesturing to it. "Read it," he says.

She frowns at him, hesitantly picking the notebook up. Rum hasn't replaced his shirt; her eyes linger on the curling downy hair on his narrow chest, wanting to imprint it on her brain. She won't do him the disservice of seducing him again. He doesn't deserve that, as much as she wishes she had some way of making him realise that he also doesn't deserve to be lonely.

The page starts with the date, written in full in a curling, cursive script. She smiles as she sees the splash of ink halfway down the paper, remembering how he had dropped his pen when she first told him about her curse. Was that only earlier today? It feels as though she's known him forever.

_Today I have found my thief. She is beautiful, and intelligent, and I will forget her as soon as she walks away._

Belle looks up, shocked; Rum is watching her, a wan smile on his face. "You wrote about me?"

He nods. "Everything that's happened since I met you," he says. "I thought... If you'd allow it... I could take a picture of us on my phone. Surely I'll have to believe what happened if I see a picture that I can't remember. I read my notes back every day, I always have. I'll remember you through my writing."

Belle has to stop to untangle her legs from the sheets, launching herself across the room at him. "I love you," she tells him as she lands in his arms. "I know I'm not supposed to say that after a day, but I do. I love you."

There's a breath, a moment, where she doesn't know what he'll do. Then his arms tighten around her, his mouth touches her hair, and he says: "And I love you." He kisses her softly, his mouth bumping against her chin, the line of her jaw.

"Come on," he says. He has his phone in his hand. "A photograph." He gives a deprecating half-smile. "The most beautiful woman with an old, ugly man who doesn't deserve her."

He's posed it as a joke, but she can tell there's a part of him that believes it. "That's not true," she says fiercely. "I wish you could remember that, remember that I said that."

Rum holds the phone up; she smiles into the camera, pressing her head into the crook of his shoulder. There's a brief flash. "I'll try to hold onto this," he whispers into her hair. "That such a lovely, bright girl could see more in me than I ever have..."

"Let me write it down," Belle suggests. "I'll write it in your book. Maybe you'll believe it then."

He doesn't look as though he agrees, but he gives her the fountain pen anyway. She scrambles back onto the bed, skimming through the passages describing the day's encounter, blushing at some of the adjectives Rum has used. He's a good writer, she decides, her cheeks pink as her eyes travel down the page.

 _Kissing her is like being on fire. She looked at me as though I was something good, and called me beautiful... I have never met a woman like her. She has a purity that she has maintained, despite being perhaps even lonelier than I... How can I condemn her crimes? She has no choice in a world that forgets. I will not pursue my thief, I will direct the investigation in other ways... I love her. It seems impossible, it must be impossible, but I love this impossible girl. I_ must _remember this, I must find her, I must see her again._

Belle finds that she's almost crying by the time she reaches the end. That Rum thinks so highly of her, to write about her like this... It's almost, almost worth the pain that will inevitably come when they have to separate. Oh, perhaps he'll read his diary, perhaps he'll believe his own words, but he'll still forget. She can't bear the thought.

Quickly, before any of her tears can run from her face and splash onto the page, she begins to write.

_My darling, darling Rum: it's me, Belle, though you won't be able to remember me when you next read this. You took a picture of us on your phone, though my face won't appear to be familiar to you when you look at it. You won't even be able to hold my image in your mind. You wonderful man, I wish so much that you could believe that I see the good in you, that I see you as you are. I love you. I'll remember, though you won't. I think it'll change me forever._

She can't write any more; her chest is constricting painfully, and the tears are running freely down her face. She passes the book silently back to Rum.

"I'm sorry it's like this," he says solemnly.

Her voice is thick with emotion. "I think you should go now."

"What? No!" He stares at her aghast, reaching out blindly to catch her hands. "Give me more time, Belle. Just a little more time."

"It won't get any easier," she says miserably. "For me, at least. For you, it'll be easier as soon as my door closes behind you."

"I'll meet you," he says suddenly, his grip tightening around her wrists. "Belle, I can't go my whole life never knowing you, I can't. Name a time and a place, tomorrow, sooner, I don't care. I'll write it down, and I'll come and meet you."

In spite of herself, Belle feels a tiny flicker of hope begin to bloom in her heart. "It won't be the same," she says uncertainly.

"I don't care," he says firmly. "Tell me where and when.

She makes up her mind. "Noon tomorrow," she says. "Underneath the tree where we spoke to Regina."

He flips open the book immediately, the pen scratching at the page as he writes down the rendezvous. "I'll be there," he promises. "I swear to you, I'll be there."

She kisses him, the taste of him salty with tears. She's not sure whose they are. "I love you," she tells him. "Whether you're there or not."

He presses his cheek to hers. "I'll be there," he says. "I love you too, Belle French."

"Houdini," she says with a shaky laugh as he puts his shirt back on.

He stands up, walks over to the door, looks back. "How can I forget this?" he murmurs.

She doesn't go to kiss him again; they've said their goodbyes. She just smiles, as strongly as she can, as he pierces her with one last longing stare.

He opens the door. Backs out of it, eyes still on her. It swings shut, and he's gone.

Belle waits. Counts to seventeen. Now he loves her; _now_ he forgets.

The room seems desolate, somehow darker without him. She can't stand it. How can he forget her? How can she go another minute without him?

Outside. She'll go out; she puts on her swimsuit, discarded on the floor, and pushes open the sliding door, walking out onto her balcony. Strange to think that she started the day here; now she ends it here, alone just as she began.

She won't cry. She refuses.

When the rain starts, it takes her completely by surprise. It's just a few drops and splatters at first, making little rings in the swimming pool, but within thirty seconds she's drenched. She can cry in the rain. It hides her tears, blending them into her wet face. Closing her eyes, Belle takes a running jump into the pool, the water splashing around her, clearing the salt from her cheeks.

She rises to the surface, gazing around her; a couple of girls in pretty little dresses shriek as they dash across the bridge across the pool, back to the safety of the hotel. No one else is foolish enough to be outside. It's the season for storms in Mexico; any rain shower can swiftly turn into a hurricane.

Belle doesn't care.

Distantly, she sees a small, smudged figure walking underneath a line of palm trees a few hundred feet away. He's wearing a white shirt, the tails flapping around him, his head bowed and his hands shoved deep into his pockets, a knapsack slung across one shoulder. He doesn't bother to run, to get out of the rain.

Rum. Her own love. Perhaps the book will be spoiled in the rain and he won't be able to read the carefully written words in the morning. Perhaps that's for the best.

She's sobbing openly now. How can it be for the best? She's losing him. What's the point in even being alive? She may as well die. Better dead than forgotten. What purpose can her life have? She's alone, so alone, and the one person who understood how terrible that feels is walking away from her.

Suddenly, Belle casts out, splashing fervently as she reaches the other side of the pool. She hardly knows what she's doing, except that she can't let him go; she heaves herself out of the water, her feet slipping on the soaking stone that edges the pool, her hair sticking to the sides of her face. Rainwater runs in rivulets down her arms, forming puddles beneath her feet as she starts to run.

He's disappearing beyond the trees; she can't let him out of her sight, as though she's the one that will forget. "Rum!" she calls. She's crying; he's hers, all hers, and she needs him to remember. Please God, let him remember her.

He turns, frowning, at the sound of her voice. His face is just the same as it was when he left her room not five minutes ago: his eyes soft and heavy with sleep, his mouth still forming a gentle smile. His shirt has gone completely see-through, clinging in sticky wrinkles to his chest. Surely he must remember her, surely what they had was too important to be lost.

"Rum," she says again, coming to a halt in front of him. He's so close she could leap into his arms, kiss him, touch his creased forehead. A single lock of dripping hair is plastered across one eye; she itches to push it back.

He looks at her. He's struggling, she can see it; trying to recall, his brain fighting against her curse. What they have is love; she's never been so certain of anything in all her life. Surely, surely, real love is bigger than anything else. Surely he must remember. Surely... But he just looks confused, not loving.

"Can I help you?" he asks uncertainly. Belle's heart, beating wildly, sinks to the bottom of her stomach. The rain splashes loudly around her.

"No," she whispers pitifully. She turns, a crack of thunder rolling above her as she steps away from him, beginning the long walk back to her room. The book is almost certainly ruined by now; his knapsack isn't very thick, and he isn't troubling to protect it.

"Wait," he says behind her. She ignores him; one more step around the nearest tree and she'll be gone, and he'll forget again. She's too tired, too drained to repeat the process of falling in love with him again tonight. Perhaps she'll have the energy for it tomorrow; perhaps not. She can't do to him what she did to Will, not again.

"Belle, wait."

Belle freezes. Did she say her name to him? She's certain she didn't, only called his. She doesn't turn around, can't move, can barely breathe. Her heart is thudding, blood rushing in her ears, the only sound the rhythmic drumming of the rain on the ground around her.

His voice is wondering, thick with emotion. "I remember," he says, and it sounds as though he might be crying.

Slowly, so slowly, Belle turns around. He's standing there, his arms outstretched to her, tears gleaming in his eyes. She loves him, she loves him, she loves him. He says, his voice catching on the words: "I love you."

The relief. Full, and beautiful. She moves into his arms as though in a dream. Her body nestles against the wet fabric of his shirt. Her body knows his embrace.

"And I love you too," she says. Her eyes close. His kiss shudders through her. "I love you too."

 


End file.
